Gina Trapani

CNN reports that the old cell phone you give away or sell on eBay could contain easily-undeleted data about your life and your private communications:

Selling your old phone once you upgrade to a fancier model can be like handing over your diaries. All sorts of sensitive information pile up inside our cell phones, and deleting it may be more difficult than you think. A popular practice among sellers, resetting the phone, often means sensitive information appears to have been erased. But it can be resurrected using specialized yet inexpensive software found on the Internet.

Turns out the information on how to truly erase your phone or PDA's data is usually buried in the user manual. To "zero out" data on a Palm, for instance, you hold down three buttons then hit a fourth. But CNN was able to resurrect data on even zeroed out PDA's. Programs like Eraser don't work on phone memory, (at least not my Nokia's), but previously-posted Cell phone data eraser might help. How do you wipe your phone before you sell? Let us know in the comments or to tips at lifehacker.com. — Gina Trapani